Week 20 - Skirt 1

.SKIRT 1 - Making

For the first skirt our team elected myself to be the first buyer and we decided to work with a light linen,  as i have never pattern cut before i decided to work with the basic pattern blocks and create an a -line skirt to gain experience in this. 

original pattern block traced

waist darts cut and closed

front panel of skirt, darts swung and opened

I drew out the pattern blocks on spot and cross and added the 1cm seam allowance as well as the darts, whilst doing this I decided to challenge myself further and began playing with the dart positioning, i swung the darts from the top to the bottom of the skirt and opened them up 30cm's to create extreme volume.

I did this as i believe because linen is a light weight fabric it would work well in a loose flowing form.

As the picture above shows ive cut and closed the dart and went on to true the line and add onto the waist the dart measurements.

As a design feature i chose a chunky purple zip to sew on the outside of the garment, i also did all the stitching in the same colour to match this.

As i researched i found that linen creases easily, to experiment further i put the skirt on a long wash, took it out and scrunched it into a ball and left it to dry, i planned to steam in the creases at uni. The wash also frayed the edges, giving an unexpected design feature.

Skirt 1 - What went wrong

where to start?!....

1. I regret sewing the skirt in a contrast colour stitch as it showed off my terrible sewing skills! The stitching also began to come unfastened, particularly on the darts, after research i realised this is because i haven't doubled back on the last few stitches

Darts coming undone

2. As ive been sewing the skirt ive been pulling on the fabric, making it uneven at the ends, with one side being longer than the other, it also stretched the fabric making it really big around the waist, resulting in me having to add in extra darts.

Extra darts and unevenly sewn! needs work..

3. I also need to research into finishes inparticular waistbands, as ive just doubled the material over.

4. When sewing the zip i found difficultly getting close enough in, to sew it onto the fabric properly, resulting in uneven stitches and alot of time wasted!

 5. After confusing myself alot and sewing the last seam wrong 4 times i gave up, i need to work on how to sew the last seam, as i cant seem to not sew it on the outside!

6. One thing i didn't bargain for!... when using the uni steamers to iron in the creases, loads of brown mucky water leaked out onto my skirt! :(
 As it was the morning of the show i had to change the design of the skirt to cover this, i draped the skirt and hand stictched it in place, it actually made it more interesting and became quite a design feature! getting it wrong to get it right
but note to self, ALWAYS DO A TEST ON EVERYTHING FIRST.

Other Findings;

How well did it work as a garment?

It was wearable, and resembled the shape and structure of a skirt..... i find that an achievement, as it was my first pattern cut, my first attempt at a zip and my first time making a garment!

 Is it fashion?

In my personal opinion, fashion is suprising and new and i dont feel my basic a-line skirt was this, although the end result after adding in the drape element i feel was working closer towards being fashion.

What was the fabric?

100% linen

How much did you use

We bought 2 metres, i used roughly 1.5m

How much did it cost?

It should have been £6 a metre, bargained down to £5 a metre

where was it sourced?

Fabric World, Goldhawk Road, Shepherds Bush

FINISHED GARMENT